Lori Regattieri presented the article “Disinformation on a Scale in Brazil: The Case of State Propagandists Against the Climate Justice Movement” at the Workshop (March 9-10, 2022) organized by the Technology and Social Change Project, at the Shorenstein Center, at Harvard Kennedy School. 

The event addressed the challenges of research on misinformation and sought to identify the digital damage caused to different communities, in addition to measuring the financial costs of misinformation for society in general. 

Lori Regattieri's article, which is part of her doctoral thesis, was presented at the panel “Digital Damages of the Global South” and addressed the impact of promoting false information about forest fires in Brazil in 2020. 

That year, Brazil's Amazon rainforest suffered the worst fires in a decade. And during this period, Lori noted that “botnets, junk news portals and misinformation have increased. This increased the promotion of false information about the possible causes of the fires and the appropriate measures to mitigate forest destruction, in addition to the growth of inaccurate propaganda about government actions during the fire season.” 

His investigation focuses on this context and points out how the climate justice movement reformulated and adapted its strategy to intervene, seeking to verify facts, carry out digital mobilizations and collective actions to leverage the voices of indigenous peoples.